Freaks in an American Culture

bad mother what?

My paper is on media images of motherhood. I begin by analyzing and critiquing the problematics of corporate media's images of motherhood, which are often stereotypical and offensive. I then argue that feminists need to make and use their own forms of independent media to put forward more complex and positive counter-images.

The University of Minnesota Women's Rugby Team

My Mother

For this assignment, I picked my mother as the subject of my documentary. Basically, I picked out a few key stories from her life so that I could tell the viewer a little bit more about my mom that one wouldn’t necessarily know just by looking at her. I choose to film her in front of a wall that is located in the main entrance of our house which is filled with family pictures that we take every year; our family is very important to my mom, and I wanted my placement of her to reflect that. Also, since she is instrumental in getting us all together every holiday to take a picture that she then sends out to our family and friends, it seemed only fitting that she be filmed in front of the wall of yearly Christmas greeting card pictures. I wanted my mom to the subject of this documentary short because she doesn’t usually get to talk about herself all that often, she is usually recounting achievements of her kids or taking care of us, so that is why I wanted to see what she had to say if I just put a camera in front of her and started asking her questions.

Hollywood Studio of Dance

May 5, 2008

Final Reflection

I really slacked in my blogging since the second half of the semester. I really appreciate this opportunity to finally sit and reflect on everything that seems to have happened so fast. We really jumped into the actual practice of feminist media making towards the end of the class and it was intense so now I am happy to just write about everything that’s been floating through my head as we wrap up our final projects.